The present invention relates to semiconductor processing techniques, and in particular to techniques for oxygen doping of silicon.
One of the problems involved in any integrated circuit manufacturing technique is that of insulating or conductively isolating some or all of the various semiconductor devices from the substrate. Present techniques for isolating devices from the substrate include diffusion isolation, where the isolation is achieved by reverse biasing beneath and often forming part of the device, and also dielectric isolation where a dielectric isolating layer isolates the device. While such techniques provide effective isolation, they are time consuming and thus add to the processing costs of the device.
A recently developed insulation technique utilizes an ion implantation technique in which a layer of the semiconductor substrate is heavily implanted with oxygen. The substrate is then heated to a high temperature to form an insulating layer of silica. This process involves a lengthy implantation and, because of the high degree of crystal damage, a long annealing time at a relatively high temperature.